


Bad Idea

by piratequeenofgreenthings



Category: Gossip Girl
Genre: Angst, F/M, Infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 04:57:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19783720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piratequeenofgreenthings/pseuds/piratequeenofgreenthings
Summary: Dan and Blair make bad decisions.It was a bad idea. They both knew it, but still, it didn’t stop them. It became a habit, an itch that needed to be scratched. No matter how many times they both said it was the last time. There was never a last time.





	Bad Idea

**Author's Note:**

> Dan and Blair making some very bad decisions. Also just want to point out I do not in any way condone cheating especially not as a way to get out of a relationship, I just felt that Blair and Dan are so messy and complicated and tragic it just felt like something like this was headed their way.
> 
> Also, it's not addressed but I absolutely do not buy the Dan is gossip girl thing so that doesn't exist in this fic. Does that make it AU?? If so then consider this AU

It was a bad idea. They both knew it, but still, it didn’t stop them. It became a habit, an itch that needed to be scratched. No matter how many times they both said it was the last time. There was never a last time.

Blair had known her entire life that she would end up with Chuck Bass, they were Blair and Chuck, Chuck and Blair. It was fate, destiny whatever you want to call it. What she hadn’t anticipated was Dan Humphrey, another half of a pair Serena and Dan, Dan and Serena. But in between all of this, there had been for one brief moment Blair and Dan, Dan and Blair and secretly being with Dan was the freest Blair had ever felt. But they ended as everything did so that the stars could align and they could become Blair and Chuck, Dan and Serena. But it was always in the back of Blair’s mind, every double date, every holiday, every party they attended, he was there. When Dan first held Blair’s son, she couldn’t help but imagine if he was their son and when she saw her son playing with Dan’s daughters again she imagined their children. She tried her best to avoid him but he was always there and he was her friend, her best friend probably. But she loved Chuck more than anything, she knew she did, she thought she did, she had to. She must have done once. But Chuck was Chuck and he was no Dan Humphrey, she and Chuck didn’t watch movies together or discuss art or literature, they never attended exhibitions together and when Blair heard of a Matisse exhibition that had just opened for a limited time, she mentioned that they could go but all Chuck asked was who Matisse was. The next time she saw Dan it was all he talked about. 

Marrying Serena fulfilled all of Dan’s dreams. All of them. There was not a single one that was not achieved by his marriage. At least that’s what he told himself. And if he stared at Blair Waldorf a few too many times during his first dance with his wife then he just put it down to that fact that she was just where his eye line rested, no particular reason. But he just couldn’t stay away, they saw each other all the time and he loved Serena truly he did. He’d been in love with her since he was sixteen, he had to be in love with her. He told himself that every day but then there was Blair and she was his friend, best friend probably and he wasn’t sure he had ever really been friends with Serena. Every time he saw Blair there was something there, something unspoken and they both felt it.

The first time it happened, they called it a mistake, they’d had too much to drink and both Serena and Chuck were away. It was a stupid, inebriated, lapse of judgement nothing more. They promised to keep it between the two of them. They were both happily married, they agreed on that. It would never happen ever again they promised that. But it did and it kept happening, then they were suddenly a year into this thing between them, in a B&B in Vermont after telling their respective spouses that they were on separate work trips. 

They hurriedly got dressed, they were always hurried as if Chuck and Serena were about to burst in on them despite the fact that they were currently 300 miles away from them.

‘This really is the last time.’ Blair said as Dan helped her zip up her dress.

‘Definitely,’ Dan agreed pulling on his blazer, ‘you love Chuck.’

‘And you love Serena.’ Blair said pulling on her shoes.

‘Of course, who wouldn’t. I’d be crazy to give her up.’

‘And I’d be crazy to give up Chuck, I’ve spent so much time trying to be with him. I can’t leave him. It’s like you said we love them.’

Dan fiddled with the button on his blazer and Blair’s heart dropped as she saw the uncertainty on his face.

‘Dan? We love them, don’t we?’

‘Do we?’ He looked up and fixed her with that intense stare of his that made her weak at the knees.

‘Of course.’

‘Say you love him then. Say you love Chuck because so far you haven’t said that.’

‘Of course I do, stop being ridiculous. I don’t have to prove anything to you.’

‘’I’m not asking you to prove yourself Blair but so far neither one of us has outright said we love our spouse. I had to tell you that you love Chuck and you had to tell me that I love Serena.’

Blair paused as she put her wedding ring back on. Dan was right, she couldn’t bring herself to say that she was in love with Chuck.

‘What are we doing Dan?’

‘Breaking the hearts of the people who should mean the most to us and who love us more than anyone?’

‘I mean besides that. What are we?’

‘Two friends having an affair?’

‘Don’t call it that!’ Blair snapped placing her head in her hands.

‘An affair? Let’s call it what it is, Blair.’

‘What do we do now? We can’t say we’re having an affair; it would ruin them. And Chuck has mafia contacts, I’m not confident in your surviving if he finds out.’ She was only half joking.

‘Well, the mafia would have to get to me before Serena does because I’m pretty sure she would kill me with her bare hands.’

‘She would.’ Blair was silent and made her way to the unmade bed sitting on the edge of it, Dan came and joined her reaching out his hand to her. Blair gently placed her hand in his and he gave it a comforting squeeze.

‘What do we do now?’ Dan asked his voice filling the comforting silence that had been there.

‘There’s nothing we can do. We can’t tell them, it would break them, and it would break our families. We both have children and I always said I wouldn’t raise my children in a broken home. But this wouldn’t have happened if we were both truly happy and in love. Happy, in love people don’t cheat. By that logic, we should both leave our marriages but if we do that and don’t confess the affair then we can’t be together.’

‘Is that an option? Being together, for real together.’

‘Do you want it to be?’

‘Yes.’ Dan said so decisively it sent Blair’s heart racing.

‘There’s no way we can be together without hurting someone.’

‘I think we’ve already hurt them, Blair. There isn’t a way to keep this a secret, this wasn’t a one-time thing no matter how many times we tried to convince ourselves of it. I can’t end this and go back to my marriage and pretend everything’s fine. Serena already knows something is wrong between us. She’s making us start couple’s therapy.’

‘Couples therapy?’

Dan nodded and Blair had to admire Serena for the lengths she would go to keep her marriage intact.

‘This would ruin her.’ Blair said softly, ‘the last thing she would want is to be one divorce closer to becoming her mother. And she loves you, Dan, she truly loves you.’

‘I know,’ Dan quietly, ‘we’re not coming out of this as the good guys, and we shouldn’t. I just wish there was some way we could start again. From the beginning, I would never have let you leave.’

Blair wanted to agree with him but her mind wandered to Henry and Natalia, her babies, the true loves of her life.

‘But if you hadn’t let me go then I would have Henry and Natalia, and you wouldn’t have Ingrid and Annabelle, and Scott. We can’t change the past but we have some control over the future.’

‘Blair…’

‘Don’t Humphrey, whatever speech you have planned please don’t. I don’t think I can handle it, it’s easier to break this off if we pretend it didn’t mean anything.’

‘No, Blair. No, I won’t pretend it meant nothing because it did mean something and we both know that. And Serena’s going to know too and Chuck because I love you, Blair, I am head over heels in love with you and I think you feel the same way about me. We can break this off, we can never see each other again but I won’t hide my feelings, I can’t do that. One day my children are going to be old enough and will want to know what happened, I don’t want them to think I threw my marriage away over a quick fuck, if I’m ending my marriage, I’m going to end it because I fell in love with someone else.’

‘No, Humphrey you’re not. If you’re going to end your marriage, you’re going to end it because you fell out of love, it would have happened without me just like how Chuck and I would have imploded without you. We fell in love with the idea of a person, you with Serena Van Der Woodsen and me with Chuck Bass. That’s what you’re going to tell your children and it’s what I’ll tell mine.’

‘I love you, Blair. That’s not going to change anytime soon.’

‘Dan, stop. You’re making this harder than it has to be.’

‘It’s been a year, Blair! Stop acting like this was a short fling!’

No, I won’t!’ Blair shouted back, ‘Because if I do then I have to admit that I’m in love with-,’ 

She cut herself off abruptly not letting herself finish the sentence. She stood up from the bed, dropping Dan’s hand and she began throwing clothes into her suitcase. She angrily wiped away her tears as she felt Dan come and crouch next to her placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. He helped her pack in silence and then she was stood at the door to their room, her coat draped over her arm and her bag in the other hand.

‘So this is it?’ Dan asked and she braved one last look at him and saw his eyes filling with tears threatening to fall over.

‘Yes.’ She said trying to be as stoic as possible but she couldn’t help herself from adding, ‘for now at least.’

‘Goodbye, Blair Waldorf.’ He said it with such finality that Blair’s heart broke, clean in two stood in the door of a Vermont B&B that took cat décor far too seriously.

‘I’ve been Blair Bass for ten years now.’ Blair said to keep her emotions from bubbling over.  
Dan smiled almost sadly.

‘You were never Blair Bass. You’re Blair Waldorf and you always have been, and you always will be. Don’t let anyone take that away from you.’

Blair had to leave then or she would start crying again. She really shouldn’t be crying, she was the one having an affair. She was the cheater in her marriage, the adulterer, the bad guy in all rom-coms.

She told Chuck she was leaving when she got home, she confessed to the affair and sat unable to stop the fear from coursing through her body as Chuck sat stoic faced opposite her. She couldn’t help but remember the last time Chuck had been so angry. He still said nothing and he continued to say nothing as he picked up that glass ashtray on the coffee table and threw it across the room so that it shattered into tiny pieces against the wall. Blair flinched as it did so and watched as Chuck left, he paused in the doorway.

‘Did you ever love me?’

‘I think I did, maybe once.’ Blair replied she had to be honest.

‘But not anymore.’ It wasn’t a question and Chuck left before Blair could say anything else.

Serena hadn’t said anything yet she just sat blinking back tears as Dan sat opposite her staring down at the table.

‘Do you love her?’ She said finally, her voice wavering as she held back tears.

‘Yes, I do.’ Dan said and he lifted his head to look her in the eyes and he knew that Serena could see he was telling the truth.

‘I never thought you would do something like this, I never even thought you capable of it.’

‘I’m sorry, Serena.’

‘Sorry isn’t good enough.’

‘I know.’

She was silent again and this time she made no effort to hold back her tears.

‘We could fix this Dan, we can go to couples therapy, work through our issues.’

‘No, we can’t. Our issues run too deep for therapy. I was unhappy long before this affair.’

‘What about our children?’

‘We can split custody, I still want to be involved in their lives.’

‘So, you don’t regret them?’

‘Regret them? Let’s get one thing straight, Serena. Our children are the best thing in my life and the best thing to come out of our marriage. I would give my life for them and you know this.’

Serena said nothing just nodded, her hands were tightly clasped resting on top of the table and Dan almost reached across to hold her hand but he stopped himself. That wasn’t his place anymore. They sat in silence like that for the rest of the evening.


End file.
